


Monster Hunter Hunts a Monster

by CaptainNightGale



Series: Of Hunters and Hunting [3]
Category: Monster Hunter (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Hunt, hunting training, training continues, yian garuga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 22:39:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13961559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainNightGale/pseuds/CaptainNightGale
Summary: Kitten's first official hunt





	Monster Hunter Hunts a Monster

**Author's Note:**

> Again, for that same friend. She really likes her monsters  
>  I don't think I've actually given her this one yet tho, so you get... idk, an advanced viewing?  
>  How lucky you are

Brushing her hands against her legs - smearing mulch across her armour – she looks up to Uma for approval, to make sure she’s done it right because traps are _hard_ and if they’re not set right then they don’t work.  
The older hunter watches her and gives nothing away.  
It was fine. She knew how to set them.  
Kitten steps back from the trap and backs out of the clearing, towards the river. Then she circles around the clearing to the way she’d left clear. Everything here was ready. The cats were in position (she sees Sunny’s tail, flicking just under the branch that he is pressed to. Snow is far better hidden, but she knows he is where he’s supposed to be). They knew the garuga’s movements, watched it come through this clearing for the past several days.  
Everything was ready.  
Kitten shifts the axe at her back so it’s loose and easy to reach, and stops before they reach the ragged track that cut its way along the forest floor. She’s watched this garuga for days now. It was almost time for it to come through to get to the stream she could hear running past just at the far edge of the clearing.  
Uma crouches three paces back behind her, in a clear supporting position. Kitten glances back to see her with her crossenders held ready. The older hunter smiles encouragingly at her and nods. The message is clear. Uma thinks she can do this.   
Kitten crouches to hide in a thicket of a wiry, strong-smelling plant that would mask her scent from any monsters that would use the path. Some kind of herb, she thinks. A wake-up one; it’s bitter to taste along with the smell of it. Possibly planted by the people who used to live here, and long since run wild, because she can see thickets of it throughout the scattered trees.  
The longer they wait, the more the forest relaxes about them. Birds start singing, smaller beasts crawl out and about on their daily missions.  
The predawn mist is thinning as the sun slowly rises higher, lighting the forest in a soft greenish glow where it bounces from leaves.  
There’s worn stone just before her, cracked paving slabs, an offshoot of the path still in use by the creatures of the forest; another sign of the city or town or… whatever it had been. The forest and the monsters had reclaimed it long before. Her attention beginning to wander, Kitten lets her gaze travel across the clearing and the forest, seeing the other remains of buildings through the plants; cracked, tumble-down walls, with vines crawling up to choke them, other plants nesting in the mortar and slowly breaking up the stones into smaller pieces, and – oh god, nature was big and it would outlast them all and win back everything and what if that was a sign that maybe Kitten shouldn’t do this, should just – go back to the city and live in safety where the beasts couldn’t get to her and nature’s inevitable crawl was slowed-  
Uma touches her back and Kitten flinches, awareness flashing back to the present and the very real forest about her.  
The entirely too-quiet forest.  
All the creatures, the birds – everything had disappeared into silence. Which could mean only one thing.  
The yian garuga was coming.  
Kitten tenses and shrinks back into the bush, and one of her hands finds the gore magala scale that’s hung about her neck on a worn piece of twine. She can do this. She can do this, she can do this, she can-  
The yian garuga is light on its two feet, and the bushes and trees that encroach the path have been pushed back so often by its wings and head that they no longer brush past, so its approach is nearly silent.  
Kitten sees it as it strides along the path, seemingly uncaring and confident in its strength. Purple-grey scales coat its thick legs and body, and taper along a tail with a spiked club at its end. Its wings are folded loosely to its sides right now, and so the rows of spikes on its back are also visible, glistening with poison. Its head is mostly _jaw_ , a massive grey beak with stubs like teeth running three on each side. The silver mane looks soft and almost fluffy as it shifts gently with every movement the garuga makes. And last, the iridescent sails atop its head, smoothed back against its neck for the moment because it doesn’t feel threatened.  
It doesn’t know they’re there.  
Kitten keeps her sigh locked, in case that is the motion that alerts it. But the plant smells too strong, and it’s thick about her, and she knows how not to move. Not moving is a useful trait in the cities and out here, in the wilds. Kitten knows it well.  
The yian garuga enters the clearing, takes two paces in – and stops. It croaks, leaning down to inspect the ground.  
The pile of mulch and leaves, that Kitten had painstakingly moulded to cover up one of the traps.  
_She hadn’t masked her scent on it_ , hadn’t thought to even _consider_ that. Stupid. It was probably still _rife_ with Human, and the garuga would _know_. She closes her eyes and bites her lip. Not good.  
It hisses, and Kitten snaps her eyes open to see it mantling its wings, the iridescent sails on its head rising. It knows they were there _somewhere_ and she’d lost the element of surprise and it would find them and-  
Kitten freezes. She just _froze_ , there in the dirt and cracked rocks of a city gone to ruin. She’d botched the hunt before she even _started_ , and now Uma would see that this wasn’t the best plan, she wasn’t ready, she would be-  
Uma prods her in the back, gently.  
The motion snaps Kitten from her stupor and she lunges to her feet and onto the path, swinging the axe into her hands. The first trap hadn’t worked. There were others.  
The garuga hears her coming, of course. It turns and pierces her with a yellow glare.  
Kitten gulps and _roars_ at it, putting everything she’s feeling into that. It doesn’t come out as a squeak, which pleases her, and once it’s voiced, she feels better.  
In the garuga’s mouth, she can see the glow of fire getting brighter, running up its throat.  
She throws herself to the side as it spits, and one of the cats – Sunny, she thinks – hits it in the jaw with his whole body, sending its shot even wider.  
Kitten rolls to her feet and kicks forward, swinging her axe into the thinner scales where its wings would fold to cover. It hits, and even sinks in a little. When she pulls it back, blood seeps out of the cut.  
The garuga screeches and kicks at her, and Kitten goes tumbling across the clearing.  
“Kit!” Sunny lands beside her, stepping up in front of her with his knives held ready.  
“I’m fine!” She gasps, on her hands and knees.  
Uma moves past them both, crossenders held ready.  
“Hey!” Kitten kicks to her feet and runs past Uma, before she can really think or second guess herself.  
The garuga twitches to watch her.  
Uma laughs and steps sideways, backing out of range of the fight.  
Kitten nods and runs in with her axe, trying to force the garuga back. It had turned so that the trap was at its back, so maybe…  
It spins and lashes out with its tail.  
Kitten drops to the ground and skids under the tail, eyes wide as it passes inches from her face. Then it’s gone and she lurches forward to smack her axe into its leg. This time it cuts deeper and the garuga jerks its foot back, screeching.  
Fire races over Kitten’s head, and she feels its heat even through the helmet.  
She grins, pulls her axe back and swings it up, into the outstretched wing as it tries to push her away with heavy flaps.  
The wing tears far more easily, more easily than she’d been expecting, and Kitten stumbles forward with the down-stroke.  
Its tail comes whistling back towards her, and even though she’s ducked, it smacks into her helmet with enough force to tear it from her head.  
Kitten gasps as the helmet is pulled free, and the force of it bowls her over again. She rolls onto her back and finds the monster directly above her.  
Time seems to slow. She stares up at it, sees it focus on her. She’s messed up bad, and – and this could be _it_. Maybe she wasn’t cut out to be a hunter, and this was what she deserved, this was what she got-  
The beast lunges at her, and Kitten can’t help but scream even as she flinches away, knowing she’s not fast enough-  
A scraping _clang_ above her. Uma grunts.  
Kitten opens her eyes to see the beast’s beak, almost impossibly close, caught by Uma’s crossenders in a pinch hold, stopping it from coming any closer. Its beak is wet from the water that sparks from Uma’s weapons, and that drips down onto Kitten’s exposed face. Kitten gasps, breath coming in sharp and light as she catches its ferocious, _hungry_ gaze.  
“ _Kit_ ,” Uma grunts.  
Kitten fumbles for her axe and swings it from where she lies, right into the garuga’s neck.  
The garuga has pulled back, and it’s only the top tip of her axe that catches its throat, but that’s enough to score through and send warm blood spilling down onto her. It screams and pulls free, and Uma jumps back as its tail whistles past.  
Kitten follows the swing of her axe to the side and gets unsteadily to her feet.  
“Are you alright?” Uma asks, offering her a steady hand.  
Kitten nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I-” She hears the coughing _hiss_ that means fire is coming, and pushes Uma one way as she throws herself the other, and a spitball of fire arcs through where they had been standing together.  
Kitten lands by her helmet and looks up to study the garuga. It’s bleeding from its leg, its neck, and its wing. It was trapped and it _knew_ it. Which made it dangerous.  
But she’s close to finishing it, and she grins. She picks her helmet up and places it back on.  
Sunny and Uma have pulled back to the path, blocking the way out. Snow is still up in his tree, watching and out of the way.  
The garuga turns its undamaged side to Kitten and hisses at her, its foot curled up to its chest.  
Kitten bares her teeth in return as she steps towards it.  
It attempts to spit fire at her, but with the cut in its neck, it can’t manage it. So it lunges instead, and Kitten sidesteps the clumsy attack and brings her axe up and over her head, and into the garuga’s neck, just behind the sails.  
The creature screeches and pulls away, and Kitten swings at it again. And again, and _again_ , until the blood is thick amongst the cobbles and the grass, and the beast is dead on the ground at her feet, its head detached.  
Kitten is breathing heavily, and suddenly all too hot in her armour. She loosens her grip on her axe and pulls off her helmet to wipe her leather glove against her forehead.  
It’s silent in the forest again, and all is calm. The river is gentle in the distance.  
She’s done it. She’d completed the hunt, with only a small amount of help. Help that hadn’t been _entirely_ necessary.  
Kitten turns to Uma and _grins_ , her face bloodied and eyes bright.  
Uma smiles in return, sheathing her crossenders. “Well done.”  
Kitten lets out a laugh. “I did it! I – actually did it!”  
“I said you were ready, didn’t I?” Uma steps forward to pick up the garuga’s head. “And with _this_ trophy… I think it’s time you went your own way.”  
“ _What_?” Kitten stares at Uma, shaking her head. “That’s – no, I can’t, I’m not-” Fear floods through her body, damping the euphoria of the kill, of the triumph.  
Uma laughs, throwing her head back. “ _Joke_ , Kitten. I’m not letting you loose and alone just yet. But you’re getting there.”  
Kitten lets out a shaky half laugh. “Don’t – _do_ that!”  
Uma grins, almost apologetic. “Sorry.” She turns to study the body. “But come on. We’ve got a lot of work to do yet.”  
“No you’re not.” Kitten can see that, and she reaches for the scale about her neck with a blood-stained hand, grasping at it for comfort.  
“I just wanted to see how you’d react,” Uma admits.  
Kitten grins, attempting not to show how utterly _terrified_ she was by the thought of being left again, and pulls the knives from the back of her belt and sets to the next part of their task.


End file.
